What to Watch Monday: HIMYM Meets the End, New Friends Move In, House of Food and More

On TV this Monday: The story ends for How I Met Your Mother, CBS introduces us to Friends With Better Lives, House of Foodgets cooking and Robin Roberts stops by Dancing With the Stars. As a supplement to TVLine’s original features (linked within), here are 10 programs to keep on your radar.

8 pm How I Met Your Mother (CBS)| One-hour series finale: Ted finishes telling his kids the story of how he met their mother… and they can finally get up off that couch. (And final theories on final twists…?)

8 pm Bones (Fox) | A new investigation gets complicated when the team determines there are three sets of cremated remains in one urn.

8 pm Dancing With the Stars (ABC)|Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts guest-judges for the first time, while the 10 remaining celebrities look back on the most memorable year of their lives.

9 pm Friends With Better Lives (CBS)| Series premiere: This comedy follows six twentysomethings who each think the others have it better, especially after one of their own gets engaged. Kevin Connolly (Entourage), James Van Der Beek (Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23), Brooklyn Decker (The League), Majandra Delfino (Roswell), Zoe Lister Jones (Whitney) and Rick Donald (Australian series House Husbands) star. (Watch a first look.)

9 pm Being Human (Syfy)| The roommates discover they are not the only ones having a hard time leaving the house.

9 pm The Tomorrow People (The CW)| Fed up with Jedikiah’s lies about his father, Stephen makes a choice about his alliances.

10 pm House of Food (MTV)| Series premiere: A group of young aspiring chefs with no formal culinary training are put under one roof, each competing for a coveted apprenticeship. (Think The Real World, except the contestants have talent.)

10 pm Intelligence (CBS)| Season finale: Gabriel and Riley are shocked to learn the identities of sleeper agents embedded in the U.S. government. (Not yet renewed; check status.)

10 pm Bates Motel (A&E) | Norman trusts Cody with a family secret, and Norma makes a deal with a mysterious man to help stop the bypass.

But with that, Lana was always meant to be what Robin is to Ted, the one that Clark thought he was meant to be with until Lois came along. I remember the writers saying that the intention was to have the big “Clana” ending in the series finale, until the show went on for 10 years, and Kristin decided to leave after 7 seasons. I appreciate the Ted/Robin story so much more after this season, and understand completely why it had to drag on for this long. But they are not meant to end up together.

I like Intelligence a lot, too. Really hope CBS renews it soon. Of the shows I watch, it’s the only one that appears to be in trouble. I think it’s gotten better and better as the season has gone on and really deserves another chance.

i agree, the mother won’t be dead. If for no other reason than its such a popular theory and those never turn out to be true in the HIMYM universe. Remember how popular the mother is going to be barney’s sister theory was? Even lily taking up the offer in italy, given it seemed like the obvious (and more secure) choice to go with marshall’s judgeship.

I hope you’re right. I’m waiting till after the show airs and there are a ton of spoilers to decide whether I’m watching or not. If she’s dead, I will give it a pass. There have been too many “shocking” deaths of characters I like on TV these past few weeks — Scandal, OUAT, The Good WIfe worst of all — and if HIMYM wants to join that group and send me into even more of a depression, well… It ain’t gonna happen.

I will be watching HIMYM live,as I have done every Monday night. I am sad to see it go, but it is definitely time. Again, I will not throw out any theories. I will watch it and enjoy it and bid it farewell. The only other show that will be on my DVR tonight is Bones. So as I have said last week, I expect large numbers for HIMYM and other shows will be impacted by this, including Bones, so no surprises when the ratings come out.

Will be watching HIMYM live – I’m all worn out from theories [mine particularly] ;) on how this series will end, so I’m just going to let the show tonight take place and enjoy it. I’m going into watching this final episode with one recent quote from the series [‘Gary Blauman’] stuck in my head, and I suspect that will serve as my last theory as to what will happen on HIMYM tonight :

“When you find someone you want to keep around, you do something about it.”

I think this quote will relate to all core-5/big-6 of the cast, but will impact two of the six in particular, and I’ll let us all draw our own conclusions as to which two of the six this quote will most correspond to and the impact on the two of them.

II”ll definitely be watching HIMYM. If anyone is dead, my guess is Robin. I think she’ll end up getting her baby – a girl, hence her missing her daughter’s wedding. It would make sense too that seeing Barney lose his love unexpectedly would make Ted want those extra 45 days….because life is short and you just never know. Robin’s death fit’s just as well (or better) than the mother’s, and brings the story full circle. Robin is the only one not already part of the gang prior to the start of Ted’s story. Meeting Robin is how and why Ted met the mother. If Robin were dead, it makes sense Ted is telling the story that was so much about Robin and how she became part of the group, his relationship with her, and how it ultimately lead to meeting the mother. In the pilot Ted (and we) are introduced to Robin – and in the finale we say good bye. Or not, and every one is alive and happy, lol.

Interesting thought – somewhere (I can’t recall now, there’s been so many interviews and reports) I read that when Josh Radnor was asked within the past week or so about the finale and how things end on HIMYM, he said ‘full circle’ (or words to that extent). So, that does tie in with your ‘circle’ theory. We’ll know for sure later tonight.

I’m all out of theories, but I do have a final question for anyone out there who has a theory or an answer/hunch: it regards Ted’s trip to Chicago –

When Ted arrives at the Farhampton station in the rain, is he still planning on going to Chicago at that point? All along, I believed he was – he’d take the train back to NY, and then next morning, off to Chicago, and it would be his meeting with ‘The Mother’ at the station that would stop him from going to Chicago. Is that still true? Or has Ted *already* decided *not* to go to Chicago by the time he reaches the station?

That first date that Ted and the Mother had in ‘Gary Blauman’ episode – Ted didn’t call for a couple of days (I think – the three day rule), and their date was quite tentative in nature [IMHO] – they barely knew each other at that point – to a point where Ted is walking away at the end (although he’s glad she called him back). Was that date, that chemistry, enough to cause Ted to not go to Chicago a couple of night’s earlier? He did ask her out on a date (I assume) at the Farhampton station; but was that date agreement enough to get him to cancel his trip to Chicago? That’s a big leap – a life changing decision to not move away from NY [that he had planned for months and months {including selling his home} in early 2013 to get away from Robin] based upon the possibility of one date with one woman he just met, with perhaps no ‘this-is-the-one’ fireworks. Hmmm.

I had thought the meeting of the Mother and Ted at Farhampton would be electric, chemical, to a point where the two couldn’t part that night – almost to a point of spending the entire night together just talking at least, love at first sight, no denying it, no escape [similar to Ted’s encounter with ‘you know who’.]

But that first date that Ted and the Mother had a couple of days later – that tells me (correctly?) that that encounter at Farhampton station was *not* a ‘spontaneous combustion’, and thus, perhaps not enough for Ted to change his life plans that much and cancel his trip to Chicago. Maybe I’m wrong. But if I’m right, then Ted indeed had already decided *not* to go to Chicago by the time he reached the Farhampton station, and if so, why did he change his mind? …and by whom?

Maybe that’s how Ted finally ‘met the Mother’ – his decision *not* to go to Chicago before reaching the Farhampton train station was enough to give him the time/opportunity to ask the Mother out on a date and for him to be in NY three days later. Remember, he’s still reading that book at the station when ‘the Mother’ arrives via taxi.

at this point i think their encounter will be similar to the mother’s encounter with everyone else in the gang, she’ll be giving him advice. Ted will tell her about how he’s about to leave new york for chicago and she will probably ask him some sort of question about why he would leave his friends and the city that he loves now that he is finally over the girl. Ted in essence was leaving because of robin so now that he has finally ‘let her go’ is there a reason for him to leave? I think it will go back to the quote in the blauman episode – when you find someone you want to keep around, you do something about it. In this case ‘someone’ would be his friends or the city or the job that he loves or maybe a combination of the 3 since marshall and lily are leaving for italy

I think the fact that ted and the mother waited a couple days for their first date is interesting and in a sense goes full circle to when we first met him in the pilot. There he was spontaneous and was so desperate to find his true love that he would do something like steal the french horn, whereas now he’s older (hopefully wiser) and doesn’t feel the need to put on a show or create this huge romantic meet-cute moment.

Who knows in some weird twist of fate the mother/the mother’s parents may have been the one to purchase ted’s house for her and her ex-fiance, something pilot-ted would have seen as a sign from the universe and he would probably make some big romantic gesture. This kind of goes along with how simple Ted’s proposal was to the mother, it wasn’t some flashy gesture a sign for how much he has changed since we first met him

Episode One/Pilot ending – “…and that kids, is how I met your Aunt Robin.”
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Final Episode of series ending – “…and that kids, is how I met your mother. … and, oh yeah, I almost forgot … by the way, your Aunt Robin is dead. I hope that doesn’t put a damper on the story for you kids.”
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Yes, I do understand the ‘circle’ theory you’ve noted, and if there is a ‘jolt’ in the finale, it will be about Robin; but man alive, I pray that this theory is not going to be correct. Even if CT/CB went ‘crazy’ when they wrote this finale, and decided to drop the hammer on poor Robin, I just can’t believe they would do that – or be allowed to that to any of the core-5 characters.

20th Century Fox has a gold mine here with HIMYM, a money machine with this series in syndication – for years and years to come. Money, money, and more money. If (if) CT/CB lost it a bit and went crazy with this finale, PF would stop them, and if it somehow got past her and reached the 20th Century Fox mgmt. that this is what was coming in the HIMYM finale, I swear, 20th Century would have shut down production on this series back in February – they’d’ have to, they just can’t allow any of the core-5 to die. Period. It gets to a point where it is not about ‘artistic’ vision anymore with this series – it is a money making business, that must be protected at all costs. No one, no one will be allowed to mess with these core-5 – they *must* live forever in television syndication. It would be like ‘Lucy’ in Peanuts dying. That’s just not allowed. Period. ;)

I haven’t watched since season 6, but I’ll be tuning into HIMYM tonight for the live finale, so excuse me if this isn’t a possibility. What do we know about the mother’s parents? Everyone keeps theorizing that either Robin or the Mother is dead. What about the Mother’s Mother dying just before Ted and the Mother’s wedding?

we don’t know very much about them yet, just throwing out another possibility but maybe there isn’t a death involved in the mother missing a daughter’s wedding scenario. Maybe there was a falling out between the two/the mother doesn’t like the fiance so although they are both still alive a mother is still missing her daughter’s wedding